VA prosthetics chief is Iraq Veteran and amputee

VA prosthetics chief is Iraq amputee
2003 attack made soldier one of 1st modern war amputees
By Jeanette Steele
OCT. 28, 2013

When Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with missing limbs come to the San Diego VA hospital in La Jolla, one of their own is sitting behind the desk.

And when he walks the halls, his step has a similar broken cadence.

Tristan Wyatt, now 31, lost most of his right leg in August 2003 when an enemy anti-tank rocket pierced his armored personnel carrier.

Back at Walter Reed Medical Center, the young soldier’s first prosthetic was like an early iPhone — good, but rudimentary. And he dreaded entering the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical system, where he imagined he’d get the equivalent of a peg leg.

When he took his first steps as a civilian again, “That was the most lost I’ve ever been.”

Today, Wyatt has found his place. He is chief of the La Jolla VA’s prosthetics and sensory aids department, where he gets to interact with some of the hospital’s more than 70 young amputee patients a year.
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